Value Line, Inc. Aktie

Good morning. I think some of you are in the process of being admitted, so I'll give it another moment. This is the Annual Meeting of Value Line, Inc. Shareholders for 2026. I am Howard Brecher, the Chairman of the Board and CEO of the company, and I will lead the meeting. In just a moment, I'll make some comments on the excellent year that the company has had. And then after that, we will have the formal business of the meeting in which we check for a quorum and take our votes. Thank you very much for attending.

I'm told that the remote computer feeds are operating, so we're going to begin. Speaking about the Value Line fiscal year that ended on April 30, 2026, and for which you have our annual report and our proxy statement, it was an excellent year. Our earnings per share at the company improved by almost 5% and shareholders' dividends were increased for the 12th consecutive year. For that fiscal year ending April 30, 2026, the company earned net income of $21,630,000. Continuing, so the company net income of $21,630,000 computed to $2.30 per share. On a per share basis, that was up about 5% from fiscal 2025. Notably, retained earnings rose again. They were up almost $9.2 million or 8.1% compared to a year earlier, reaching $122,578,000 as of April 30, 2026, the highest level in the past 2 decades.

Let me touch on a few major areas that your management is concentrating on now. On the marketing front, let me begin first about our original market of individual investors. Our publishing business for individual investors has continued advertising at a somewhat higher volume as results have been good in a steadily rising stock market. Getting consumers' attention is, of course, a battle for us as for most advertisers. We have a solid presence on well-established social media platforms, and we have plans to reach additional audience this year through an investing podcast to be delivered on Spotify and other podcast locations.

As we seek to give our subscribers the benefit of fast delivery and the ability to customize their services, we encourage readers to consider our digital delivery or combination plans of print and digital, while we share with subscribers the operational savings of internet delivery with them. When I say customize, I refer to the fact that our subscribers using the digital services can search and sort, filter by literally dozens and dozens of data fields, so they can hone in on the stocks and exchange-traded funds and the rest that interest them.

Going on, let me speak about information technology, which is the heart of our business and so many others. As a publisher of data and research, we run on information day in and day out. Taking that into account, we are continually updating and redesigning our software systems for greater efficiency and reliability as well as security. Security is always a priority in whichever direction we take. And we perform multiple professional tests of the security of our systems each year.

Company hosts our information technology equipment at multiple secure data centers at quite geographically dispersed locations, which I'm not supposed to say exactly where they are, but there are many, many hundreds of miles between the key locations. A key use of our IT facilities is in generating our ranks and ratings, the unique proprietary recommendations and ordering of securities that Value Line has done for 95 years now. Our augmented staff of statistical experts has achieved a great record in both 2025 and this entire year-to-date. Meanwhile, our deeply experienced portfolio managers have continued to guide readers to outsized success, excuse me, in the market.

We have expanded the use of carefully constrained artificial intelligence methods in our processes. By using the AI methods, we're able to even more quickly gather and organize the latest and most accurate data with a reduced risk of error or inconsistency. These revised processes in turn, support our highly talented staff, our proprietary ranking system and one of the largest independent staff in the world of analysts and data experts who work with our systems and our data and our methods to recommend and select stocks, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to our subscribers and many of whom, in turn, use it for their portfolio management type of operations.

Speaking of our own back office or support facilities, I want to say that the outsourcing of our distribution operations to United States domestic suppliers has been successful and continues to represent a cost saving as well. We also manage expenses by selectively reducing the frequency of mailing print publications in some instances while providing the timelier investment information that we're able to give our customers through digital delivery. As I said, we emphasize digital delivery, which is available now on all of our subscriber services. And we call -- share the benefit of those efficiencies with our subscribers through the combination of print and digital delivery plans.

Admittedly, the cost of paper and especially postage continue to be a headwind as we try to provide our loyal print readers of many years with the service that they want and rely upon.

Before I give you some numbers, let me turn my page here. Saving some of the best for last, financial highlights. The company remains exceptionally strong in terms of balance sheet numbers, cash flow and all aspects of financial strength. That gives us the flexibility to continue our plans and to grow in good times and bad, up markets and down. Our investment in EAM, EULAV Asset Management Company, which is the distributor and adviser of the Value Line branded mutual funds. Our investment in EAM produced income to Value Line of nearly $19 million this fiscal year, and that represented a 3.6% increase over the year before. Retained earnings, which I mentioned, grew during the year by 8.1% to $122.6 million on April 30, 2026, a record high over the last 20 years.

And liquid assets, I talk about flexibility, liquid assets exceeded $86 million at year-end, a nearly 13% increase. That money is invested. It's not in a bank account, but it's invested in a variety of equities, Treasury bonds and other instruments, all of which are fully tradable and liquid at any time. And not incidentally, not coincidentally, our management of the investment portfolio produced investment income and gains of $6,428,000, nearly double the fiscal 2025 level and a nice contributor and steadying influence to our financial picture. And in the last 2 years alone, well over $20 million in dividends have been paid to shareholders, reflecting steady increases and in fact, 12 increases -- 12 annual increases in dividends in a row voted by your Board of Directors.

So in conclusion of my report, a quality management and employee team from research and statistics to sales, marketing, purchasing, IT, human resources and all the rest have brought us to continuing success even in the face of persistent inflation in the economy. I want to thank the support of our employees, shareholders and partners, which has enabled us to enjoy another year of financial growth and increased dividend.

With that background, I'm going to go into the official business of the meeting. We have the representative here of our stock transfer company, which does a steady job throughout the year for us, which we appreciate. And -- so we'll go through the official business. And after that, I'm going to take a couple of questions, which, as we indicated, were submitted in advance of the meeting from shareholders.

Let me introduce to you our Vice President and Principal Financial Officer, Stephen Anastasio. He's here with us on the meeting at 551 Fifth Avenue, and he will participate in going through with you the business of the meeting. The meeting was called to order this morning at the beginning at 10:34 a.m. by me. And again, if a couple of people joined late, I'm Howard Brecher, the Chairman and CEO of Value Line, and we welcomed you to the annual meeting. The purpose of the meeting is set forth in the notice of meeting, which you all received. It was mailed August 19. Stephen Anastasio, as Vice President and proxy, will also act as Secretary of this annual meeting.

Steve, will you present the proof of the due calling of the meeting, please?

Sure. Good morning, all. A copy of the printed notice of the meeting date...

You are muted for the moment. Mark, if you can arrange for Steve to speak.

Can you hear me now, Howard?

Why am I muted?

Okay. Now Mark, I can't hear him. Can you hear me, Howard?

Okay. I present the following: a copy -- my name is Stephen Anastasio. I'm the Vice President and Treasurer of Value Line, Principal Financial Officer. I present the following: a copy of the printed notice of meeting dated August 19, 2026, setting forth the time, place and purpose of the meeting. A complete list, which are at the desk of the inspectors of election, of the holders of the common stock of the company as of the close of business on August 11, the record date fixed by the Board of Directors for shareholders entitled to notice and to vote at this meeting, which list shows that 9,387,957 shares of common stock were then outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting.

An affidavit of Dominic Vaca, employee of Equiniti Trust Company, LLC, the company's transfer agent as successor to AST, showing that on August 26, 2026, Dominic Vaca caused to be mailed the notice of internet availability of proxy materials, including the notice of meeting, proxy statement, form of proxy, annual report and proxy cards to each shareholder of record on the record date.

Thank you, Steve. I note for the minutes that a copy of the printed notice and the certificate of mailing will be retained with the records of the company. Next, pursuant to the authority vested by the Business Corporation Law, I appoint Tamara Cajuste and Stephen Anastasio as inspectors of election. Inspectors have executed prior to the meeting an oath of office, which will also be filed with the minutes of the company. I ask now that the inspectors take a poll of the stock represented at the meeting in person or by proxy and present the report, including the presence of a quorum. I did see the certificate at the beginning of the meeting, and I confirm to the presence of a quorum. Steve, go ahead.

Is there anyone present who wishes to present a proxy at this point?

Hearing none, as I said and view the written report, the inspectors of election have indicated to me that there are present in person or by proxy at this meeting. The holders of record as of the close of business on August 11, 2026, of a majority of the outstanding shares of the common stock of the company. By reason of the fact that the holders of a majority of issued and outstanding shares of common stock of the company are present in person or by proxy, a quorum is present, and the meeting can now proceed officially to the transaction of the business for which it has been convened.

The first order of business is the election of directors for the ensuing year. The following persons are candidates for director as set forth in the proxy statement where you have all of our backgrounds. They are Howard Brecher, Stephen Anastasio, Mary Bernstein, Glenn Muenzer and Alexander Swistel. Let me now formally entertain a motion that nominations be closed. Is there such a motion?

I make the motion to close the nominations.

Thank you, and I'm able to second that. Now, shareholders who have sent in their proxy forms since nominations were closed without objection. Shareholders who have sent in their proxy forms will have their votes cast by the proxies in writing with the record pursuant to the shareholders' instructions. I ask as in the old days, will the inspectors take the ballots and act as tellers, and I ask have all who desire to vote done so. The great majority of the shares of the company have been voted. I appreciate your participation. The polls are closed.

Now the certificate of the inspectors of election, which shall be filed with the records of this meeting, indicated the presence of a quorum for conduct of the business of the meeting, as I said. As required by law, the inspectors of election will examine the ballots, count the votes cast. A lot of this will be confirmed, as Mr. Anastasio said, by Equiniti. And after counting the votes cast, they will make their final report as soon as practicable. So the management of the company will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission probably today or tomorrow, a Form 8-K, including the exact count of the votes cast.

However, I have a preliminary report, and I'm able to confirm that the 5 candidates I mentioned are now elected as directors of Value Line, Inc. for the coming term of 1 year and until their successors are elected and qualified, and those persons are Mr. Anastasio, Mr. Brecher, Mrs. Bernstein, Mr. Muenzer and Dr. Swistel. With that announcement, we've now concluded the transaction of the business specified in the notice of the meeting.

What I'll do is first ask for a formal adjournment of the business so that the inspectors of election can go on with the balloting. And then I'm going to answer some questions that as we requested, were submitted in advance. So that's the business. We've now concluded the transaction of the official business specified in the notice of the meeting, and I entertain a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Mr. Anastasio and all those in favor, please say yes. Without objection, the formal meeting is adjourned.

And let me address a couple of questions that came in earlier, and then I'll let you go and go about other business. Let me see what I have for questions. I do have questions here.

First question, as I recall, addressed the economic environment. And specific question was, can we have management's views on the economic outlook and its effect on the company?

A great majority of the business that Value Line undertakes is in North America. Our largest economy in North America is the United States, and that economy continues to be in a long-lasting expansion, although there have been some dips, especially this year in the rate of growth up and down. Recently, not only prices, but also interest rates on long bonds and short-term investments, both have risen. With unemployment low, consumers have continued to spend pretty steadily and investors remain relatively optimistic.

As you know, the engine of the stock market has been the technology stocks, including still new, growing, relatively unprofitable so far, artificial intelligence stocks and many, many companies in all lines of business that support that so-called build-out of the artificial intelligence infrastructure of the future. While some worry that the markets are too focused on technology stocks, our published services indicate that there are good opportunities to be found as well among many other areas, including stocks that pay a growing dividend, which is something that your company does and has been, over the decades, an indicator of a growing company that will have a good total return on their stock.

Again, as a mostly domestic company, we have not been overly affected by disruptions from oil supplies or tariffs, although we do feel some impact from all those things in our paper costs. And again, it's a truism that the energy costs and oil prices affect almost everybody. For example, it's one of the factors in the steady increases in postage costs, and it's one of the factors in our paper costs.

And then I'm asked, as I have been before, what are the Board's plans for buying back stock? Like other companies, we have pretty steadily been in the market to buy back stock, although at a generally moderate level of activity. We don't particularly anticipate that you'll see anything dramatic. But often, most of the time, we have viewed our stock as a good investment and have wanted to purchase shares from time to time. Repurchase program remains in effect. And if you've watched your press releases, you'll see that it was renewed with additional funding by your Board of Directors over the summer.

So those were the questions we did want to address. I appreciate the submission by shareholders. And with that, thank you very much for attending both the formal and informal sections of the meeting of shareholders. Have a good day, and it looks like we'll see you next year. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Value Line, Inc. We appreciate your participation. What we're going to do today is first go through the formal business of the meeting, including a quorum call and election. I'll then make some very brief comments about our business and sort of the state of the company. And finally, we've received a couple of questions in advance through the e-mail address that was given, and I'll be happy to answer those. So first, as I said, we'll begin the formalities of the October 7, 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Value Line, Inc. All right. Will the meeting please come to order?

Good morning. My name is Howard Brecher, I'm the Chairman of the Board and the CEO with Value Line. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The purpose of this meeting as set forth in the notice of meeting, which you have all received, and that includes the quorum call and the election of directors for the coming year. At this meeting, Stephen Anastasio, Vice President, will act as Secretary of this annual meeting.

Mr. Anastasio, will you kindly present the proof of the due calling of the meeting?

I present the following: a copy of the printed notice. Sure, Howard. Thank you for the introduction. I present the following at the annual meeting, a copy of the printed notice of meeting dated August 20, 2025, setting forth the time, place and purpose of the meeting. A complete list, which are at the desk of the inspector of election of the holders of the common stock of the company as of the close of business on August 12, 2025, the record date fixed by the Board of Directors for shareholders entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting, which list show that 9,409, 022 shares of common stock were then outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting.

An affidavit of Domenick Vacca, employee of Equiniti Trust Company, LLC, the company's transfer agent and successor to AST, showing that on August 27, 2025, Domenick Vacca called to be mailed the notice of Internet availability of proxy materials, including the notice of meeting, proxy statement, form of proxy, annual report and proxy cards to each shareholder of record on the record date.

Thank you, Steve. A copy of the printed notice and the affidavit of mailing will be retained with the records of the company. Now pursuant to the authority vested by statute, I appoint Tamara Cajuste and Stephen Anastasio as inspectors of election. The inspectors have executed an oath of office, which will also be filed in the minute book of the company. Next, I ask that the inspectors take a poll of the stock represented at this meeting in person or by proxy and that they present their report, including the presence of a quorum.

So is there anyone present who wishes to present the proxy?

Hearing none, the inspectors have now indicated to me in writing that there are present in person or by proxy at this meeting, the holders of record as of the close of business August 12 of a majority of the outstanding shares of the common stock of the company as required for a valid meeting. By reason of the fact that the holders of a majority of issued and outstanding shares of common stock of the company are present in person or by proxy, a quorum is present, and the meeting can now proceed to the transaction of the business for which it has been convened pursuant to the formal notice.

The meeting thus will proceed to the election of directors for the ensuing year. Now the following persons are candidates for director as set forth in the proxy statement: Howard A. Brecher, Stephen R. Anastasio, Mary Bernstein, Alfred R. Fiore, Stephen P. Davis, Glenn J. Muenzer. The Chair will now entertain a motion that nominations be closed. Is there such a motion?

I motion that the nominations be closed.

Thank you. Hearing no objection, I'll read for the record that shareholders who have sent in their proxy forms will have their votes cast by the proxies pursuant to the shareholders' instructions. Will the inspectors take the ballots and act as tellers. Have all who desired to vote done so? Hearing none, the polls are closed. The certificate of the inspectors of election, which shall be filed with the records of this meeting, indicates the presence of a quorum for conduct of the business of the meeting as we said.

Also, as required by law, the inspectors of election will examine the ballots count the votes cast and will make their report as soon as practicable. Thereafter, the management of the company will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, a Form 8-K as required by law, including the exact count of the votes cast. We have now concluded the transaction of the business specified in the notice of meeting. Therefore, may I request a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

All those in favor, please say yes.

Yes.

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned. And now as I said, I'll briefly discuss some major developments within the business in 2025 and try to answer your questions. Your company had an excellent year in fiscal 2025, the 12 months ending April 30, 2025. Shareholders' dividends were increased for the 11th consecutive year, and we're very proud of that.

Meanwhile, the company earned net income of $20,686, million, translating to $2.20 per share, up 8.8% from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025. Notably, on the earnings streams are some earnings from EAM, the investment adviser to the Value Line Mutual Fund. Those totaled $18.318 million, which grew by more than $5 million, up 38% from last year.

Retained earnings rose again, up by more than $9.1 million or 8.8%, strengthening our hand as a business and representing an increase of 8.8%, now totaling $113.4 million as of April 30, 2025, the highest level of retained earnings in the past 2 decades. The outsourcing of our distribution operations to United States domestic suppliers has been successful and continues to represent a cost saving as well as a reliable way of serving our customers. Lastly, income from securities transactions of $3.238 million reached a new record high in well over a decade. exceeding the prior year's income of $2.764 million by more than 17% on investment income or securities income.

Touching on just a couple of our sales and marketing initiatives. On the individual investor front of our publishing business, we have continued advertising at a higher volume as results have been good in a steadily rising stock market. We continually expand the use of artificial intelligence and other advanced computing techniques to model and then target our advertising more effectively and to raise the yield or the percent of positive response on our advertising dollars. We also carefully experiment with some of our price points, particularly as we seek multiyear subscriptions, which really tend to give our customers a chance to get to know us and tend to bind them to us as long-term customers.

Now on the defensive front, you might say, let me talk about our information technology provisions. We run on information or information company day in and day out. Taking that into account, we are continually investing in, updating and redesigning, especially our software systems for greater efficiency and reliability and security. This includes being quite far along in replacing our older legacy systems, which we have a group of -- and -- looking ahead, we -- you might say we got ahead of the curve and have already replaced all of our employees' work computers with high-quality Windows 11 units, offering the greatest practical security available.

We also have performed this fiscal year professional scans and tests of the security of our systems. Finally, as I've stated before, the company hosts or operates our actual computers, our IT equipment and multiple secure data centers through a highly reputable and stable provider of such services. They call it colocation or multiple location systems. Let me touch on some financial highlights. As I said, the business is very strong, as the resources to grow and to prosper through any bumps in the road. We're exceptionally strong in terms of balance sheet numbers, cash flow and all aspects of financial strength. That gives us the flexibility we need.

Retained earnings grew during the year by 8.8% to more than $113 million on April 30, 2025, a record high for retained earnings over the last 2 decades. Liquid assets, similar definition of working capital, which is the older phrase, liquid assets exceeded $77.4 million at year-end, a more than 13% increase in 1 year. And as shareholders who have been with us know very well, over $20 million in dividends have been paid to our shareholders over the past 2 years.

So in conclusion, a high-quality management and employee team has brought us to continuing success even in the face of persistent high interest rates, which have been a challenge, not because we borrow, but because of its impact on customers and on some aspects of the stock market. Your management very much appreciates the support of our shareholders, employees and partners, which has enabled us to have another successful year and increase our dividends for that 11th straight time.

A couple of questions were received in advance of this meeting, and I'm happy to answer them briefly. First question we got is, what is management's view of the economic outlook and its effect on the company? The economy in the United States, where we do some 98% of our business has generally been expanding for quite some time. However, we expect expansion to continue nevertheless for the next year or more. As always, there are areas for concern, aren't there always. That includes an unemployment rate that is creeping up and what you might call softer areas of the economy such as manufacturing and homebuilding.

To address these areas of softness, we think the Federal Reserve is taking timely policy action. Stock market conditions with most indexes hitting new highs again, hit them again yesterday, have also overall been a positive for your company. The timeliness ranking system is there to predict growth and has continued to do well. Also, you have Asset Management, which operates the Value on mutual funds established by this company in 1950, is considered a growth-oriented fund adviser.

And so it's done very well in this growth-oriented market, we're happy to say. Now our copyright clients, which are really dominated by a dividend-oriented fund, have lagged a bit. But we believe that with their solid safety and earnings orientation, they should eventually recover, especially if interest rates continue to fall as they're beginning to do now. Finally, everyone is talking about tariffs, but higher tariffs have had relatively little impact on our profitability and thus far have not been a disruption to the supply chain, but we do try to plan ahead on that by diversifying our supply sources.

Next question we received from shareholders. What are the Board's plans for buying back stock? Like other companies, we have pretty steadily been in the market to buy back stock at a generally moderate level of activity. The repurchase program adopted a couple of years ago by the company remains in effect. Our Board considers its stance in this regard periodically. So those are the questions that we had and my brief summary of our financial position. We very much appreciate your voting and participating in this meeting, and we thank you very much for attending. Have a good day. The meeting is adjourned, as we've said. Good day.